The FAST Approaching Gun Ban

[trish]

(for home protection)

I have a coffee maker, the function of which is to make coffee. It works. I use three to five times a day for that purpose.

I have a tooth brush, for the purpose of cleaning my teeth. I use it for that purpose. About as often as I use the coffee maker.

I have locks on my doors, but not to prevent people from entering my home when I’m not there. It’s easy enough, afterall, to bust the sliding glass door and walk through or core the lock. The function of door locks isn’t really to prevent people from entering my home. One might argue they function to discourage people from entering my home. Do they really work to discourage not-so-serious break-ins? Only if someone bothers to try to break in and then turns away. How often does that happen? Face it...most locks never function to prevent entry. So what function do door locks serve? Mostly they function to give people peace of mind. Do they work to give people peace of mind? I would say, “Yes, that why lot’s of people take the trouble to lock their doors...though a lot of people take the trouble.”

Some people tell me they have a gun for protection. Yet ninety five percent of those guns have never been used for that purpose. So what function do they really serve? Like the locks, they merely serve to give the owner peace of mind. Unlike locks, the presence of guns increase the risk of being killed or injured. This risk is not just shouldered by the owner alone, but by everyone in the household, every nearby neighbor and if the owner carries his firearm secretly through the streets, then everybody in the community suffers an increase risk of being killed or injured by a firearm. For the most part guns are not used for protection, they are bought and toted about for the owner’s peace of mind (and also to bolster the perception of his manhood...recall the Bush Master Ad saying as much). But that peace of mind is illusory. The presence of a gun increases the risk of death or injury for every person in it’s proximity.

[buttslinger]

The NRA is not going to say they are only in it for the money, and some kid in Iowa is not going to tell you he wants a gun for KICKS, my point is, what the fuck else does some Iowa farm kid have to do for kicks except fuck a cow maybe?

There was a time when guns really did protect homes, killing Native Americans.

Guns killed those damn British scoundrels in 1776.

Slavery helped turn Georgia Woods into thriving Plantations, paving the way for schools, hospitals, stores.

The Atomic Bomb made the USA THE world power.

Obama is at this moment spending billions of dollars refurbishing our aging Missile Defense System. capable of literally turning the entire globe into a glowing Christmas Tree Bulb for the next thousand years.


Let the poor Iowa farm kid have some fun. the world is a fucked up place.

[trish]

During the last century Iowa farm kids had fun shooting rabbits with single shot .22 caliber rifles. There's no need to upgrade to semi-automatics. Besides, like all other kids, Iowa kids can be found indoors playing video games. They rarely go out except to do their chores.

[fred41]

Well I guess we try here in N.Y.:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/16/ny...york.html?_r=0

[Stavros]

I heard a programme on the BBC Radio about a proposal in the Journal of the American Medical Association to approach gun violence as a public health issue. The article is linked below, here are some extracts. I think this is a compelling argument, and also if it deals with the lethal connection that seems to exist between people on prescribed medicines for emotional/behavioural disorders and their use of firearms to express themselves...not sure if it would be popular, but should you create taxes for gun ownership?

Extract:

Between 1966 and 2010, the prevalence of cigarette smoking among US adults was reduced by more than half from 43% to 19%.7 This remarkable success was achieved by multicomponent approaches across a range of public health domains.2,4 For example, taxation produced better representation of long-term societal costs in the purchase price of tobacco products and, crucially, secured funding for prevention efforts. Existing federal and local taxes on firearms and ammunition are neither comprehensive nor representative of the true external costs of gun ownership.8 A new, substantial national tax on all firearms and ammunition would provide stable revenue to meaningfully target gun violence prevention. This revenue should fund a national endowment to benefit those harmed by gun violence and their families; a sustained public awareness campaign to increase gun safety, reduce gun violence, and assist in recognition of at-risk individuals; and stronger enforcement of existing gun laws. Such efforts would not necessarily be intended to reduce ownership, a key regulatory and political distinction.


A multicomponent initiative to modify sociocultural norms also played a critical role in reducing tobacco use. Through much of the 20th century, cinema, television, and advertisements glorified cigarettes as “symbols of modernity, autonomy, power, and sexuality.”3 Strategic use of media, education, celebrities, peers, teachers, and physicians served to shift sociocultural norms toward cigarettes as symbols of “weakness, irrationality, and addiction.”3 An analogous campaign could equate gun violence with weakness, irrationality, and cowardice. In today's society, US adults and especially youth view a staggering amount of graphic violence in television shows, commercials, movies, and video games, much of it idolized and glorified. A generation ago, many popular movie heroes smoked. Today, many movie heroes shoot at other people. To protect children, current policies strictly restrict obscenities and sexual imagery, yet remain permissive of gun violence. In a recent poll, 4 of 5 US adults agreed that decreasing depictions of gun violence in television shows, movies, and video games would be “somewhat” or “very effective” at preventing mass shootings; notably, this conviction spans partisan lines


Article is here:


http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article....167#qundefined

[broncofan]

Great article Stavros. If gun violence were treated as an externality and those who chose to engage in the activities bore the costs, their use would decrease.

In addition to taxation, better tort liability for manufacturers of guns would be useful. In the U.S there is both federal and state legislation making it nearly impossible to succeed against a gun manufacturer in a products liability action. In fact, even when gun manufacturers have been sued for promoting the illegal use of their weapons or for profiting from negative publicity after a tragedy, these suits have failed to even make it to a jury. I'm going to be reading a bit more about this in the next few months.

[Prospero]

I believe it is tucked away in the Obama package of proposals that research programmes that look at gun violence as a public health issue - previously blocked by lobbying from the NRA - will now be back on the agenda.

This is from todays NY Times.


What’s in Obama’s Gun Control Proposal
The initiative to reduce gun violence announced by President Obama on Wednesday includes both legislative proposals that would need to be acted on by Congress and executive actions he can do on his own. Many of the executive actions involve the president directing agencies to do a better job of sharing information.
Proposed Congressional Actions
Requiring criminal background checks for all gun sales, including those by private sellers that currently are exempt.
Reinstating and strengthening the ban on assault weapons that was in place from 1994 to 2004.
Limiting ammunition magazines to 10 rounds.
Banning the possession of armor-piercing bullets by anyone other than members of the military and law enforcement.
Increasing criminal penalties for "straw purchasers," people who pass the required background check to buy a gun on behalf of someone else.
Acting on a $4 billion administration proposal to help keep 15,000 police officers on the street.
Confirming President Obama's nominee for director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
Eliminating a restriction that requires the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to allow the importation of weapons that are more than 50 years old.
Financing programs to train more police officers, first responders and school officials on how to respond to active armed attacks.
Provide additional $20 million to help expand the a system that tracks violent deaths across the nation from 18 states to 50 states.
Providing $30 million in grants to states to help schools develop emergency response plans.
Providing financing to expand mental health programs for young people.
Executive actions
Issuing a presidential memorandum to require federal agencies to make relevant data available to the federal background check system.
Addressing unnecessary legal barriers, particularly relating to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, that may prevent states from making information available to the background check system.
Improving incentives for states to share information with the background check system.
Directing the attorney general to review categories of individuals prohibited from having a gun to make sure dangerous people are not slipping through the cracks.
Proposing a rule making to give law enforcement authorities the ability to run a full background check on an individual before returning a seized gun.
Publishing a letter from the A.T.F. to federally licensed gun dealers providing guidance on how to run background checks for private sellers.
Starting a national safe and responsible gun ownership campaign.
Reviewing safety standards for gun locks and gun safes (Consumer Product Safety Commission).
Issuing a presidential memorandum to require federal law enforcement to trace guns recovered in criminal investigations.
Releasing a report analyzing information on lost and stolen guns and making it widely available to law enforcement authorities.
Nominating an A.T.F. director.
Providing law enforcement authorities, first responders and school officials with proper training for armed attacks situations.
Maximizing enforcement efforts to prevent gun violence and prosecute gun crime.
Issuing a presidential memorandum directing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to research gun violence.
Directing the attorney general to issue a report on the availability and most effective use of new gun safety technologies and challenging the private sector to develop innovative technologies.
Clarify that the Affordable Care Act does not prohibit doctors asking their patients about guns in their homes.
Releasing a letter to health care providers clarifying that no federal law prohibits them from reporting threats of violence to law enforcement authorities.
Providing incentives for schools to hire school resource officers.
Developing model emergency response plans for schools, houses of worship and institutions of higher education.
Releasing a letter to state health officials clarifying the scope of mental health services that Medicaid plans must cover.
Finalizing regulations clarifying essential health benefits and parity requirements within insurance exchanges.
Committing to finalizing mental health parity regulations.
Starting a national dialogue on mental health led by Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of health and human services, and Arne Duncan, the secretary of education.
Source: Obama administration proposal.

and a good edtorial...

Gun Reform for a Generatio


We usually cringe when politicians drag ordinary people onstage for their events. But the four children who appeared with their parents and President Obama in the White House on Wednesday at his announcement on gun control proposals drove home the nature of the crisis facing the country. While guns and gun control have been a subject of debate among politicians and lawyers and lobbyists and pollsters and political groups in the center and on the fringes, our children have been living in a free-fire zone for sociopaths with virtually unfettered access to instruments of mass murder.
Related

It is past time that elected leaders did something about it without worrying, as Mr. Obama said on Wednesday, about getting “an A grade from the gun lobby.” It has been a bipartisan betrayal of the public’s safety, the fault of Democrats and Republicans, and of a string of presidents who have said mournful things after the mass murders at Columbine and Virginia Tech and Aurora and Newtown but did not act.

Wednesday was the exception. One month after the Newtown, Conn., murders, Mr. Obama presented a comprehensive set of initiatives that was, for a change, structured around what needs to be done and not what political tacticians think the president could get a dysfunctional Congress to pass. Mr. Obama can be frustrating at moments like this, and his delivery today was as professorial as ever. But he stepped up to the broader issue before the nation in remembering the tragedy at Newtown.

“While there is no law or set of laws that can prevent every senseless act of violence completely, no piece of legislation that will prevent every tragedy, every act of evil,” he said, “if there is even one thing we can do to reduce this violence, if there’s even one life that can be saved, then we’ve got an obligation to try.”

Mr. Obama said he believes the Second Amendment bestows an individual right to own guns. We have disagreed with that position, but it is now the law as judged by the Supreme Court, and as Mr. Obama said so passionately, it should be no impediment to gun regulation.

“Along with our freedom to live our lives as we will comes an obligation to allow others to do the same,” Mr. Obama said, noting that 900 people have died in gun violence since Newtown, a vast majority of them on the streets of “big cities and small towns.”

We have “the right to worship freely and safely; that right was denied to Sikhs in Oak Creek, Wis.,” Mr. Obama said. “The right to assemble peaceably; that right was denied shoppers in Clackamas, Ore., and moviegoers in Aurora, Colo. That most fundamental set of rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, fundamental rights that were denied to college students at Virginia Tech and high school students at Columbine and elementary school students in Newtown; and kids on street corners in Chicago on too frequent a basis to tolerate.”

Mr. Obama’s announcement was preceded by a blast of propaganda from the far right that his proposals would be confiscatory and tyrannical. Anyone who was paying attention to the news in the last couple of weeks knew that this was nonsense, and the proposals announced on Wednesday were not remotely similar to what the gun lobby wanted Americans to believe they would be. They will not limit any law-abiding American’s right to own guns for hunting, or sport, or collection, or self-protection.

The package is a mix of executive orders intended to tighten and heighten enforcement of existing gun laws and sweep away ideologically motivated restrictions on government action against gun violence, and new laws that will have to be passed by Congress.

Mr. Obama’s bills would require universal criminal background checks for all gun sales, doing away with the loopholes for gun shows, private sales and Internet sales that have exempted 40 percent of all gun sales from those checks. He called on Congress to reinstate and toughen the ban on assault weapons that was allowed to expire in 2004. He wants to restore a 10-round limit on ammunition magazines and to ban armor-piercing bullets that are used by criminals to kill police officers. The president asked Congress to pass a $4 billion measure intended to retain 15,000 police officers who are being laid off as states and localities react to the recent recession and to budget cuts from Washington.
Related

Mr. Obama also issued executive orders to make the background checks system more comprehensive and strengthen enforcement of existing gun laws. He is ending a freeze on research into gun violence at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that was imposed by lawmakers at the behest of a gun lobby that is terrified by the prospect that gun violence could be viewed, as it should be, as a public health issue. He also signed an order making it clear that doctors and other health care providers are not prohibited by any federal law from reporting their patients’ threats of violence and that the health care reform law “does not prevent doctors from talking to patients about gun safety.”

Mr. Obama and Vice President Joseph Biden Jr. acknowledged that getting any of the president’s proposals through Congress was going to be a herculean task. Mr. Biden said, “I also have never seen the nation’s conscience so shaken by what happened” in Newtown. We have hoped, too, that the murders last month would finally inspire action, especially if Americans pressured their representatives in Congress to do something about this crisis.

Mr. Obama and Mr. Biden will have to make good on Mr. Obama’s promise to do everything they can to fight for these proposals in Congress — and that will mean twisting arms and making threats to members of his own party as well as to Republicans.

The gun lobby is focused within the Republican Party, but Democratic lawmakers have also been to blame for failing to pass meaningful gun regulations. Already, some Democrats who should be strongest on gun controls are showing familiar signs of weakness.

Senator Pat Leahy, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, will be needed as a leader in this effort but has been mumbling about the need to hold extensive hearings. And Senator Harry Reid, the majority leader, was making ominous, cowardly remarks over the weekend about tailoring whatever the Senate does to what he thinks could get through a House dominated by the far-right fringe of the Republican Party. He has started to wriggle away from the idea of an assault weapons ban, for example.

This is not a time for lawmakers to do the politically safe thing or the N.R.A.-approved thing, even if they know it is less than needed. It is time to reach for big ideas and strong laws on gun violence.

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[Stavros]

Great article Stavros. If gun violence were treated as an externality and those who chose to engage in the activities bore the costs, their use would decrease.

In addition to taxation, better tort liability for manufacturers of guns would be useful. In the U.S there is both federal and state legislation making it nearly impossible to succeed against a gun manufacturer in a products liability action. In fact, even when gun manufacturers have been sued for promoting the illegal use of their weapons or for profiting from negative publicity after a tragedy, these suits have failed to even make it to a jury. I'm going to be reading a bit more about this in the next few months.

I think you should thank the BBC as I would not these days check the JAMA on a regular basis. I think the cardinal point must be to find a way of framing legislation that is practicable, that does not focus on ownership as such, and which appeals to the general voter as a reasonable law designed to reduce extremes of gun-related violence. It would even be worth spending a year on it to get it right, rather than rushing in well-meaning legislation that is full of holes. But as Prospero's link also indicates, thinking of extremes of gun violence as a pubic health issue does remove it from the toxic arena of 'ownerhsip is freedom' and focus on the relationship of gun owners to their own societies; much as smoking is about neighbourhood effects as well as on the smoker, and motoring requires adequate roads and highways as well as safe cars, and competent drivers...

[Odelay]

During the last century Iowa farm kids had fun shooting rabbits with single shot .22 caliber rifles. There's no need to upgrade to semi-automatics. Besides, like all other kids, Iowa kids can be found indoors playing video games. They rarely go out except to do their chores.

Most of 'em have fake id and are drinking and raising a ruckus in the taverns on my block. Damn noisy Iowa kids!

[robertlouis]

If the gun lobby beats the President, then shame on you America. Get ready to mourn more massacred innocents.